The employment of antenna getters in cathode ray tubes is well known. Further, it is known to use high electrical resistance material as the internal conductive coating in such tubes to limit arcing and to prevent damaging arcs from occuring between the closely spaced electrodes of the electron gun. When tubes employ high anode voltages, high resistance internal coatings and antenna getters, which getters are attached to the final electrode of the gun and extend into the tube envelope and contact the resistance material, it is necessary to include some form of electrical insulation between the getter and the gun to avoid shorting out the high resistance material and providing an arcing path. Numerous techniques have been proposed for achieving this insulating quality. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,961,221 the distal end of a getter wand is provided with a ceramic wheel which contacts the resistance material. U.S. Pat. No. 3,927,953 discloses a getter whose base is comprised of an electrically insulating ceramic ring. German Offenlegungsshrift No. DE-OS 26 52 277 discloses an antenna getter whose proximal end is electrically insulated from the final electrode of the electron gun by a glass or ceramic rod.
While all of the above-described antenna getters theoretically function well, it has been found in practice that the various electrically isolating elements used thereby tend to pick up conductive material during use. This conductive material often comes from the getter itself and provides an electrically conductive path which subsequently renders the device unsuitable for its purpose.